None of this will matter to the early adopter 'facebook' types who will buy the S. I just priced out a basic 300 mile S, with the options one might want (paint other than black or white), leather, navigation, etc. the car runs about 90k before the tax credit. I see the 'Signature' models are close to 100k with the credit.... This is the Mercedes S class crowd in terms of pricing....

Eric, The way I see it, spending close to a 100k on a car to 'insulate' youself from higher oil prices can only make sense if the stuff goes so high it's close to unobtainable for the masses. If that occurs anytime soon, I doubt you will be in a position to take that S out on the road with any semblance of safety....

I've been working for many years to get off the "dole" of fossil fuels. My house doesn't burn any so the next electric car gets me off the last few drops. I enjoy generating my own, clean, sustainable electricity. No bills and am working on my other home to get it totally off the grid. Well not quite.. I'll sell the excess electricity to my utility. Any electricity that isn't needed to run the house and charge the cars will go to the grid and benefit my neighbors.

Well John at my "off grid" home it became much cheaper and much more reliable to generate electricity via PV's vs the gas guzzling, smelly, dirty, unreliable generator. I'm saving about $7000 a year not feeding and trying to maintain that beast!

I've never had a power failure since I stopped using it. Something the other "grid served" islands next to me can't even come close to claiming.

The PV system paid for itself after only about 6 years.. And that's without any tax credits or government funding.

Edit:

If I duplicated the system today it would be paid off in less than 4 years..

After that it's virtually "free" electricity for the next 40 years or so..

I must be missing something. My electric bill ran about $750 bucks last year, connected to the 'grid'.... You spent 7 GRAND to power your home via a generator? I doubt a solar array would ever pay in Chicago.... Probably why I don't see any around....